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Friday, October 17, 2008

Review: W.

It's not really a comedy like the trailers advertise. And it's not really a normal president biography like Oliver Stone usually goes for.

No, W. is just a story - a story about a guy. A guy who gets into something way over his head.

I went in expecting to see a mockery of Bush (not to say the movie is completely devoid of that), but I left the theater feeling something for him. Not hatred, not anger, but sympathy.

About 70 % of the movie deals with his life before the presidency. The rest is his time in office. It's not really like there is a plot I can explain - it's just US history.

George Walker Bush (Josh Brolin) is a kid born to a silver spoon. His father pulled some strings to get into Yale, and he became a frat boy. He drinks, he smokes, he parties, and he's incredibly lazy. He can't keep a job, and his father is incredibly disapproving.

Unfortunately, this is a true story.

The thing that surprised me most about W. is the fact that Bush is never really flat out attacked. It doesn't show what a 'failure' his time in office was, and what went wrong. It doesn't show him too much at fault for anything. Rather, it paints a picture of a man who has never been quite able to step out of the shadow of his brother and his father. And like anyone of us would, he needs an outlet.

This movie reminded me of Batman Begins. In both films, we are presented a character that the whole world seems to know so well. And in both films, the director takes us through an in-depth character study of each. Bush is not a criminal. He's just a kid. A kid who needed to prove himself. Even if it means running for president.

Brolin is fantastic. There were times where he put Frank Caliendo to shame. I felt like I was listening to dub-ya himself.

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